Margaret opened it in the car afterward.

It was four pages and it was entirely tedious, and it said that no obligation created by Nathan Brooks could ever attach to any asset belonging to his daughter.

She has read it twice and put it in a drawer.

Sophie walked up to the headstone alone, which she has done since she was ten, and put the flowers down and put her palm flat against her mother’s name for a while.

Margaret stood back and let her.

She has spent seven years thinking about how nearly it went the other way, and she has never been able to stop making the list.